Requiem for a Shady Lady

This week we got a new car! This means, since there are only two of us and our automobiles now number three, we will be getting rid of a car. The one to go is our little Escort.

My relationship with the "Shady Lady" (as I call the Escort) had a rocky beginning. She replaced the "Grand Dame" - my Grand Am, the first brand new car I ever purchased. I loved the Grand Dame. She was sporty. She had pick up. She was a symbol of my carefree single life. She had also taken on the characteristics of flattery - getting me nowhere. So, our first automobile purchase as a married couple was the burgundy Escort, a responsible, affordable car which got good gas mileage. Ugh. I was determined not to like this car. After all, she replaced my true vehicular love.

Then it happened. We bonded. It might have been while driving narrow roads winding around the hills of Eastern Kentucky while doing home visits required by my job at the time. It might have been the time one of the parents' directions to their home didn't include the warning that you couldn't see their house in the summer when the leaves and corn were growing and that the dirt road you were driving on would end abruptly in a creek!

There I am - front end of the car in the creek, which is looking more and more like a river to me! I prayed. I pleaded with my little four cylinder car to have Hummer strength and back out of the water. It did! In the midst of the water and mud, somehow the Shady Lady found traction and out it backed and I was on my merry way! The Shady Lady now had not only my gratitude, but my affection as well.

She has over 225,000 miles on her. She leaks about a quart of oil every six weeks. Her stereo still works, but the A/C doesn't (which, after recently driving in 90 degree weather with no A/C, has lessened my grief over her imminent departure somewhat.)

Even still, I'll miss the Shady Lady. In the end, she was a high-class Escort.